Just For Fun

That headline is Hillary Clinton's biggest current problem. At this point, it has become akin to how Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign used to be described: "a noun, a verb, 9/11." Clinton has entered similar linguistic territory, because any headline using the word "Clinton" and the word "emails" now triggers a consistent reaction from the public. Details, even fresh new ones, don't even really matter all that much at this point -- all people are really hearing now is: "Clinton, a verb, emails."

The anti-Clinton forces consider it a victory to see yet another round of email stories written, of course. But in all the investigating and document dumps, they have never uncovered any sort of bonfire-sized scandal to inflame public passions -- it's all been pretty small-scale stuff. More on the order of a damp match being lit in a rainstorm than a bonfire, really. A brief burst of light and energy and then (...pffffft...) it fizzles out into nothingness. Because of the lack of truly scandalous revelations, it has instead become a campaign of attrition, with those opposed to Clinton hoping mightily that the sheer volume of "Clinton Emails" headlines will eventually wear her down in the public eye.

Hillary Clinton has had this drag on her campaign for over a year now, and I don't expect it to go away any time soon. Even long after she is elected president (assuming she wins), it's a pretty safe prediction that late-night comics will still be doing endless email jokes about her. Indeed, it has now become one of the defining factors of how the public sees Clinton.

But even having said all of that, it hasn't appeared to do her much damage politically. Her trustworthiness ratings are historically low, but they might have been that low even without the whole email mess (it's impossible to tell, really, but it's worth pointing out that people had other problems with trusting Hillary, long before the emails became a problem). Even so, she's still up in all the polls. About the worst thing you can say about her political position versus Donald Trump is that if the Democrats had chosen a different nominee (Joe Biden, say), he might now be doing a lot better against Trump in the polls. While this might be true, the difference between winning by eight points and crushing Trump by 20 points is rather immaterial. In both cases, Trump loses.

Of course, if the F.B.I. had urged the Justice Department to indict Clinton over her use of a private email server, things would be different. But they didn't. Once she got past that hurdle, it's hard to see the public really changing their minds before the election, at this point. Bernie Sanders was rather prophetic, because most of the public are now "tired of hearing about her damn emails."

The electorate has a short attention span for scandals. Especially damp-match-sized scandals. At some point, the candidate can realistically claim: "You're just bringing up old stuff that has already been endlessly hashed out," and then move on. It worked for Barack Obama over the Reverend Wright scandal, remember. The story broke, much ink was spilled over it, Obama gave a speech, and then he moved on. By the time the election happened, it was old news. Clinton's email story seems to be travelling a similar arc, although with her there's a constant drip, drip, drip of new emails being released. So far, though, they've shown nothing more than the shocking truth that wealthy individuals get access to the government -- which is not exactly a big revelation. It's likewise not a big revelation that the Clintons (both of them) have been in the midst of this atmosphere for decades now. Using Rumsfeldian language, this is a "known known."

Most people have already made up their minds about Clinton's emails, one way or the other. Absent any bonfire-sized new revelations, these attitudes are probably set in concrete and won't be changing before November. Those who already think Clinton is too sleazy to vote for won't be voting for her. Those who think Clinton is indeed sleazy but also far better than the alternative will probably be voting for her (unless they have something better to do on Election Day). Those who think the whole thing is a manufactured witchhunt straight out of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy playbook will be enthusiastically voting for Hillary, no matter how many more "Clinton Emails" headlines appear.

Call it email fatigue or just boredom at the lack of any fresher and more interesting scandals, but the public seems to have largely made up its mind on the question of Clinton's emails. Oh, sure, Donald Trump will get as much mileage out of it as possible (I'd bet he'll bring it up within the first ten minutes of the first debate, personally), but other than further enthusing his already-enthusiastic supporters, he's not likely to get a whole lot of traction from such attacks.

So the problem will persist for Hillary Clinton, for a long time to come. However, the problem is relatively small at this point, because it hasn't disqualified her in most voters' opinion. She has largely weathered the scandal because people are so tired of hearing about it over and over again. If she had never set up a personal server she would doubtlessly now be in a stronger political position, but the one she currently occupies is probably strong enough.

Republicans (and the media) have cried "Wolf!" on the email story so many times now -- with so little to show for it -- that the public seems on the verge of not paying much attention to any such cries in the future. Every time a supposed smoking gun is spotlighted, it never lives up to its billing. At some point, the frantic spotlighting ceases to draw a whole lot of attention. We seem to have reached that point. So while Hillary's problem has been pared down to two trigger words, seeing "Clinton Emails" headlines elicits no more than a shrug from most voters. The Republicans have, once again, overplayed the political hand they were dealt.

100 Comments on “Clinton Emails”

It is boring. As a numbers guy I can only hope for a Black Swan event to break the monotony. The electorate is so polarized that no matter what the two candidates do or say will move the needle. This election is very steady and has been for months. The media, on the other hand, are eating this stuff up. To me it's just noise..

Slow news time of year.
Ralph Nader just did a segment on cuddling on his Radio Hour.
SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION WARNING!
It seems to me that rather than boring email stories or segments about cuddling someone could fit in information and/or commentary on Voucher Vendetta during the news lull.
It may not be important enough when there is "real news" or even as important as a boring email story- but it's got to be more important than cuddling.

For me a Black Swan event would come as a surprise and throw my analysis off. Which way the needle moves or what a candidate did to make it move matters not to me. What matters to me is the analysis itself. Is it correct and will it yield the correct results on Nov. 8.
Throw a Black Swan in there and it really screws up the numbers. All I can do is figure out why it happened when it wasn't suppose to happen and recalculate. For me it's all about the numbers. The rest is just noise...

There may be a Black Swan event that could result in a Trump victory. Perhaps you are also a guy who doesn't think there is much of a difference between the two major candidates and you don't really care who wins because your only interest is in the numbers.

If Trump ends up being your next President then I predict you may decide to broaden your interests beyond the numbers.

Thank you. There is a big difference between the two major candidates. I'm voting early in Sept for my candidate. I'm sure she will be a fine President. I have many other interests besides playing with numbers. I'm retired. I have to do something with my time...

The Trump/Pence campaign office down the street from our local Clinton/Kaine office remains inactive. We've checked each day since Saturday. There's tables and chairs and posters on walls and no people.

The Clinton presidential campaign now has announced some new, mainly cosmetic reforms to avoid the obvious impression that it would be prudent for both American and foreign donors to invest in the next president of the United States. And that president, it appears more and more likely, will be Hillary Clinton as her Republican opponent continues to self-destruct. How handy to have all those chits in their hands when it comes time to collect.

But why wait till now to announce these supposed reforms? Weren't they just as much an ongoing conflict of interest when Hillary Rodham Clinton was "only" secretary of state? And why wait to announce that they won't go into effect until just after election day? Which means donors could rush to give the Foundation big money just before November's election, when it would matter most.

To quote Jonathan Chait, a columnist who leans heavily to port: This new policy is an "inadequate response to the conflicts of interest inherent in the Clinton Foundation," and shows that Hillary Clinton "has not fully grasped the severity of her reputational problem." Or maybe she has, but just doesn't care. Those of us who watched her rise here in Arkansas will know she's been getting away with ethical shortcuts for a long, long time and the lower she sinks, the higher she rises in the esteem of her fans--or just of those who have benefited from her largesse. "Ultimately," Mr. Chait concludes, "there's no way around this problem without closing down the Clinton Foundation altogether." What, and lose all that money flowing into the foundation from all over the world? Fat chance.http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2016/aug/24/a-pattern-emerges-20160824/

The ONLY way that Crooked Hillary can get out from under this cloud is to shut down the Clinton Slush Fund...

But Hillary walk away from hundreds of millions of dollars of "free" money??

As critical reports pile up about the access Clinton Foundation donors enjoyed with Hillary Clinton’s State Department – and Donald Trump and his allies hammer her over the allegations – few elected Democrats have rallied to the party nominee’s defense.

The fact that many of her usual allies are locked in tight House and Senate races may be contributing to the surrogate silence, as they focus on their own races. But, as the Trump campaign was quick to point out Wednesday, the Democratic nominee has even faced criticism from her own side.

Hillary Clinton’s post-convention bounce may be coming back down to earth – at least in some parts of the country – as new polls show a tightening race against Donald Trump in several battleground states, especially when Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is factored in.

A Monmouth University Poll released Wednesday showed Clinton holding onto just a 2-point lead in North Carolina.

So, I saw an actual Hillary Clinton television ad last night. I don't think I've ever seen a presidential ad on TV in my life, which isn't exactly surprising since I live in Texas. If Hillary is putting out TV ads in Texas, she must be very confident in the strength of her campaign. It also may suggest that she thinks Texas really could turn purple in the near future.

Hope springs eternal in rightwing land. And, in their walled-off space they are all singing and dancing at their shiny new fake scandal. Let them dance. And unskew polls while they do it! And remember, the crowds look big at the Trump gatherings!

According to their reporting, Clinton spent a remarkably large share of her time as America’s chief diplomat talking to people who had donated money to the Clinton Foundation. She went out of her way to help these Clinton Foundation donors, and her decision to do so raises important concerns about the ethics of her conduct as secretary and potentially as president. It’s a striking piece of reporting that made immediate waves in my social media feed, as political journalists of all stripes retweeted the story’s headline conclusions.

Except it turns out not to be true. The nut fact that the AP uses to lead its coverage is wrong, and Braun and Sullivan’s reporting reveals absolutely no unethical conduct. In fact, they foundso little unethical conduct that an enormous amount of space is taken up by a detailed recounting of the time Clinton tried to help a former Nobel Peace Prize winner who’s also the recipient of a Congressional Gold Medal and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Paul Waldman at Washington Post:

The latest Clinton email story just isn’t a scandal

Are you ready for the shocking news, the scandalous details, the mind-blowing malfeasance? Well hold on to your hat, because here it is:

When Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, many people wanted to speak with her.

Astonishing, I know.

It's always there, the tantalizing new scandal, freshly-brewed and wafting the scent of "finally! the smoking gun!" Breathe deep -- it smells best in the beginning, when hope is still alive. Those are the precious hours before the fake-scandal and reality begin their wrestling match.

Meant to include in the above one of the quotes:Even so, the number 154 is preposterously low, as Clinton would routinely meet dozens of civil society leaders, journalists, and others on any one of her many foreign trips as secretary of state. In the campaign’s official response to the AP, they argue that the data is "cherry picked" from a "limited subset" of her schedule.

But regardless of that, the AP’s social media claims are simply false — ignoring well over 1,000 official meetings with foreign leaders and an unknown number of meetings with domestic US officials.

The way the AP cherrypicked to come up with their 154 is a big part of why journalists are panning the story. Furthermore, ALL the then say is that 85 of that 154 (a tiny percentage of her total number of meetings) both met with her AND donated to the Clinton Foundation. The implication, of course, is quid pro quo. There is no proof of that however. Just the waft of implication which is the root of all Clinton fake-scandals.

So here is the deal. Before I read one fucking more critique of the Clinton Foundation by journalists or “scoffing ethicists” from the fucking Bush administration, they need to show me their plan to get oligarchs to fund Aids drugs for millions of people and all the other good stuff the Clinton Foundation currently does. Until then, go pound sand up your ass.

[35] Michale says quid pro quo is nearly impossible to prove. Which is why this is the perfect vehicle for yet another fake-scandal. The Clinton's are expected to prove a negative, which is impossible.

But them's the Clinton rules -- always guilty, never proven innocent by normal means because you can't prove a negative. Fake-scandals forever circulated by rightwing mouth-pieces. And on we go.

Elizabeth: They'll figure it out to the degree that it's possible to do the impossible. They have to balance several objectives and keep their eye on the bigger ball. There will always be another fake scandal because that's how righties play the game.

Notice however, how weak the righties are: think of how many crimes they allege the Clinton's to have gotten away with! Why are Republicans so weak? Why can't they ever bring it home? Frankly, since the Clinton's, like Obama, are practically supernatural in their ability to get away with supposed crimes, I'd rather have them in charge than these weak-ass Republicans who can't ever get the conviction.

[41]Why is Hillary Clinton's response to the cozy relationship between her state department and the Clinton Foundation so weak?

Elizabeth: why do you swallow this nonsense so readily? There is no "cozy relationship". It's a construct. Stop being a sap. If you want to help then go online where it counts and push back. Otherwise you are just perpetuating the problem and helping Republicans and mouthpieces like Michale spread crap.

Michale: Just put it in the bag with all your other nonsense. I'm not going to waste any further time on this with you. You will do what you do, which is to pitch rightwing slurs.

To return to my initial point, enjoy it while you can, and make sure to continue to convince yourself the Donald is going to win. After all, there's all those secret people who are ashamed to admit they like Orange-man but they'll be sure to vote for him! And his flip-flopping on immigration won't matter at all with his white supremacist supporters! And his supporters are all registered and fired up to vote! It's all going swimmingly!

Liz: I was a bit harsh with you because Michale had just posted (but retracted while I was typing) another stupid piece of nonsense. But my point remains: this fake scandal needs pushback, not acquiescence.

But, I've done something better than go on line. I sent an email to a trusted political analyst and former political advisor to both Republican and Democrat presidential candidates, among others, outlining the kind of approach to all of this that the Clinton campaign should be taking.

It would be the ultimate pushback and the not the lame approach (read: "there is smoke but no fire") that the Clinton campaign has been taking thus far.

You said, "this fake scandal needs pushback, not acquiescence."

I couldn't agree more. Is there any way that you can get your message to the Clinton campaign because, so far, they may as well be acquiescing. :(

I may share it here unless the feedback I get is that my approach is totally nuts. :)

It is going to be one fact-free conspiracy theory after another - emails, health, pay-for-play, etc. etc.

CW's point about the emails can be made more generic - we know that there is a whole industry of desperate right wing losers who see a conspiracy behind every tree, but, just like repeated telephone calls from the IRS, or solicitations from Nigerian Princes, more and more people are tuning them out.

The bubble used to be able to influence the wider sphere, but all that is happening is that the bubble is getting smaller and more desperate.

So let's see if this works both ways. CW and Michale are in a similar situation - would Michale be able to post if he wasn't a big donor? Is Michale only allowed to post "facts" with no sources because he has special access. If I tried this at NRO I'd be banned (in fact I was banned there because I used to post inconvenient climate facts with peer reviewed sources from respected Journals - amusingly).

So let's see if this works both ways. CW and Michale are in a similar situation - would Michale be able to post if he wasn't a big donor? Is Michale only allowed to post "facts" with no sources because he has special access. If I tried this at NRO I'd be banned (in fact I was banned there because I used to post inconvenient climate facts with peer reviewed sources from respected Journals - amusingly).

That is a beautiful thing. I've come to accept that Trump is less a flip flopper and more a pinwheel, changing direction with the wind but for that to happen on the very day Coulter launched her book...How I do love to see the really annoying fall flat on their faces :)

Hillary's speech is a kick-ass tour de force. No yelling. Calm outrage. About 33 minutes. She laughs at the attempts to question her health. Disses Alex Jones beautifully. The Breitbart headlines: priceless. "Donald Trump reading these and thinking this is what I need more of in my campaign."

The alt-right: a fringe element that has effectively taken over the republican party. Quoting David Duke. Teachers talking about The Trump Effect: bullying of minorities/immigrants/Muslims.

Liz: I was a bit harsh with you because Michale had just posted (but retracted while I was typing) another stupid piece of nonsense. But my point remains: this fake scandal needs pushback, not acquiescence.

In future, direct your harshness more appropriately.

Did Hillary Clinton's state department have a cozy relationship with the Clinton Foundation?

Yes it did. And, why the hell shouldn't it? One might reasonably expect the diplomatic goals of state department to overlap with the work of the Clinton Foundation and other like entities. This is a glorious opportunity for Hillary to highlight all of that.

Anyway, my point is that you shouldn't be so upset by the phrase "cozy relationship" to the point where you start calling me very unkind names.

Elizabeth: I am sorry I called you a sap. I will try in the future to avoid allowing momentary irritation be translated into unkindness.

Re: the cozy relationship -- the answer is actually "no". Indeed, it appears HRC was vigilant in avoiding crossovers in any way that would violate her position as SOS. I agree that on some level there could be overlaps in that powerful/rich people in different parts of the world might also get themselves involved in diplomatic issues. But the key to the supposed scandal is really a basic question: did HRC as SOS somehow do favors for people who contributed to the Clinton Foundation? Even the AP, in the end, said "no". They just said it AFTER implying otherwise through their headline, tweets and misleading calculations. And in the process, they cast doubt on the foundation which actually -- and not surprisingly -- appears to be both exemplary and extraordinarily helpful in many areas.

I guess we'll just have to agree that we see "cozy relationship" from different perspectives. I don't see it as a problem, especially since there is no evidence of any personal favours given in return for donations.

In any event, the way Hillary is handling this and her private email system borders on acquiescing and not at all like pushback. I just can't get her response - "there is smoke but no fire" - out of my head, no matter how hard I shake it.

And, she has so much to pushback with! I am really rather surprised by her failure to take full advantage of these issues and turn them into opportunities to highlight her leadership prowess, especially with regard to the state department she headed up for four years.

I still haven't received any feedback on the bold new approach Hillary should take that I mentioned earlier - maybe that's because it is nuts but, it would give pushback whole new meaning!

Elizabeth: I think tomorrow will be instructive. I think it's possible Hillary's speech today will have pushed the Clinton Foundation story off to the side as the media grapples with the ramifications of the speech. That, in combination with the pushback by a lot of the press may render it relatively meaningless (as it should be). We'll see.

I think Trump is in quite the box at the moment -- he was trying to do a pivot on immigration and his alt-right fans were objecting strongly. Hillary has just cemented him to the alt-right and his association with them alienates everyone else. I think he may do some epic tweeting over the next few days and that always makes things worse for him. It also distracts.

And this is outstanding set-up for debates. Although Paul Begala tweeted today that if Trump's handlers actually allow him to debate they'll be committing campaign malpractice! Another pickle for the orange one. It makes for a nice change to have someone other than Hillary be damned if he does/damned if he doesn't!

Elizabeth: I think she's doing extraordinarily well. I don't think her approach is "dangerous" and I think she and her team or navigating their various slings and arrows with a lot of effectiveness. Life being what it is, there's no way to know if some other approach would have been better when it comes to handling these various obstacles.

I think she went into this campaign with a good general sense of what she'd be up against. Her team created a strategy and they are working it. The news cycle is unpredictable and they win some and they lose some. But in the end she's up in the polls and he's down. She's got funds to spend and his fundraising has dropped off. To me the biggest unknown at this point is how she'll do in the debates. I believe she will do well, but I'm curious how meaning, exactly what will her approach be? Although I also think there's a very good chance Trump will no-show. But I'm quite sure they're prepping intensively on the theory the debates will go forward.

Early voting starts in about a month. I heard today on Kagro in the Morning (DailyKOS radio) that 30% of votes cast last time were done via early voting. Which means Trump is seriously running out of time re: ground game/GOTV.

To Chris's point, the email "scandal" just doesn't have any steam left. I think this foundation thing will fade. So we'll just have to disagree on this.

Read it -- don't see the connection between it and how Hillary is handling the email/foundation stories, other than that there's some longstanding animosity from Putin and Assange and they will/may try to do more mischief. We already knew that didn't we?

In this month's Bloomberg Politics poll, 58 percent of voters said they were bothered "a lot" by potential conflicts involving the Clinton Foundation. And 53 percent felt that way about the e-mails.

She has exacerbated these problems in recent weeks. Last month, FBI Director James Comey said there were no grounds to prosecute Clinton for using private e-mail, but called her "extremely careless" about handling sensitive information.

Yet Clintonland continues to rationalize. Clinton implied that Comey had declared that her response to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other public statements had been truthful. He didn't; indeed he noted that while her testimony to the FBI was truthful, some of her public comments were not.

In 1993, First Lady Hillary Clinton lobbied for the North American Free Trade Agreement and her husband signed it. At the time, the Clintons promised NAFTA would create 200,000 new jobs. Instead, NAFTA has destroyed more than 850,000 American jobs while the U.S. trade deficit in goods has rocketed from near zero to $60 billion annually.

The even bigger failure of the Clinton NAFTA deal, however, has been its tremendous negative impact on Mexico itself and Hispanics on both sides of the border. While tens of thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs went south under NAFTA, a flood of agricultural products from the United States put tens of thousands more Mexican farmers on the unemployment line — even as NAFTA raised corn prices and sent 20 million Mexicans into a life of “food poverty.”

It was precisely this body blow from NAFTA to the Mexican agricultural belt that helped trigger a mass migration on the Coyotaje train to El Norte, destroying families and farming towns throughout Mexico in the process.

That’s the ultimate irony of NAFTA: It was supposed to help both Mexico and the United States but it wound up tearing down the U.S. economy and tearing apart a large chunk of Mexican society. And this all happened because Bill and Hillary Clinton didn’t know a good trade deal from a bad one.

Donald Trump brings an entirely different perspective and skill set to trade deals, job creation and immigration reform. It is a perspective that should be welcomed with open arms by an Hispanic and Latino community that seeks economic opportunity, is built on a culture of hard and honest labor and embraces family values.

Here, it must be said that Donald Trump is the only presidential candidate who has ever employed tens of thousands of Latinos in various enterprises around the world. He has treated his workers with respect, paid them fairly and promoted them freely irrespective of race, creed or color and solely on the basis of the good and hard work that they do.http://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/the-overwhelming-logic-hispanics-trump

Can anyone argue the logic and the facts with logic and facts of their own??

Rather than being a smart ass and automatically assume the answer is "NO", I'll wait patiently for a response... :D

Read it -- don't see the connection between it and how Hillary is handling the email/foundation stories ...

Well, the point of the article and subsequent pieces (that I would encourage you to read as well)
is that we and the Hillary campaign cannot afford to indulge in complacency. Not when Hillary is mostly single digits ahead of the know-nothing candidate and when any change in the dynamics of this race as a result of a domestic or international surprise could be very bad for her.

However, if you don't see a problem, then you have nothing to worry about.

Not when Hillary is mostly single digits ahead of the know-nothing candidate and when any change in the dynamics of this race as a result of a domestic or international surprise could be very bad for her.

I know, right..

Like I have always said.. If Hillary is so good and Trump is so bad, why is it so close??